I love taking photos. I love capturing my own truly insignificant view of the world to look back on later. I love seeing other people’s significant views of the world, as they see it.
Taking a photo feels like a liability though:
- Take the photo (with a Canon SLR)
- Remember to transfer the photos to my laptop
- Sort through the photos
- Touch up photos
- Export photos, save to archive location
Then, in the archive location on a network hard drive, they’re not even properly accessible by the family.
As I write this, it reminds me of Derek Sivers who said:
“Knowing that we have this human nature to think of things we like as simple, and things we don’t as complicated, you can use this to deliberately simplify how you think of something you’re avoiding, making it more appealing.” [23:07]
“What you have to do is notice, in your mind, when your complications are holding you back, and then turn the dial towards simplicity in your mind. … But then notice in your results when a more simplified approach might be holding you back. Perhaps you’re only using one tool in your toolbox and you need to learn others.
And as for all the business advice out there… If information was the answer, then we’d all be billionaires with perfect abs. … Most of you just need to shut that shit off, put your blinders on and get out the door and start running. Metaphorically speaking that is.” [23:45]
So perhaps the lesson for me is “take the fecking photo”.
I can always try to simplify the process of dealing with a photo, but I know that I love the process of taking them.
Thanks to my former colleague Jordan, who suggested taking photos as if you were still dealing with film: limit the number of photos you take to 24 or 36 that day. That’s sound advice that compliments my new “take the fecking photo” approach.